The Sheffield Park Three visit Horsted Keynes

Venue: The Crown, Horsted Keynes

Walkers: The Sheffield Park Three - Farty, TB and Mrs Provincial. Ms Nohills struck low by a nasty bout of food poisoning/Uckfield belly, Clatters away in Portsmouth, Registrara unavailable, Chris possibly still having shed problems? and 10 legs lost somewhere in deepest Sussex! We missed you all!

Weather: Hot and humid again, like last week - hence distance/time taken

Time taken: just over 3 hours, including a quick visit to the Bluebell Railway

Distance: 10k / 6 miles

Find of the walk: a child's discarded Man U glove - rightly discarded some would say!
The Three met in the car park of The Crown, Mrs P having just received a call from a very lost 10 legs! They had been travelling round most of Sussex and had arrived at Borde Hill gardens, but at that point Sue decided to give it a miss and take 8 legs for a walk on the way home.


We set off, almost immediately went wrong - oops! - but quickly got back on the right road towards Horsted Keynes church. We didn't stop this time, but apparently it is well worth a visit as it is very old with an interesting history, and also has the graves of Harold Macmillan and his family in the churchyard - they lived locally at Birch Grove and worshipped frequently in the church. On the road to the church we saw the very grand gates to The Old Rectory which we couldn't see but the grounds were lovely. Unfortunately I couldn't find any info on Google as to who lives in a house like this, but must be someone not short of a bob or 2!

We then joined the Sussex Border path which led us past a beautiful series of hammer ponds which were being fished by a local angling club. 2 smart alec blokes decided to call to Farty and Mrs P who were leading TB "hurry up and you'll catch the others up" What a cheek! Unfortunatly the others were a group of the dreaded ramblers so we spent the next half hour or so trying to avoid them - they obviously walk at a slower pace than us as we finally passed them taking a break by the side of the path.

The path passed a beautiful manor house called Broadhurst Manor which up until recently was the home of the writer Carla Lane and her animal sanctuary. A little bit of (quiet) road walking, over fields and onwards to the Bluebell Railway. We had timed it so we could be at the level crossing in time to see a train come down the line from Kingscote - or so we thought. We heard the 'chuff chuff', ran down the field but couldn't quite make it in time! However, all was not lost as we took a quick break and a look at the timetable revealed another train was shortly coming up from Horsted Keynes, which we waited for. TB tried not to get too excited! and got some great video clips on his new camera, unfortunately recorded with Farty and Mrs P's witterings in the background - well, there was a particularly fit driver on board who we were admiring. Ooo, young man!! (picture Editor (TB): not able to upload this 'stunning' piece of video for tech reasons!

left: 1em;">We then followed the path alongside the railway line, round a little loop and back over the line and into Horsted Keynes station. We decided to stop for a quick look, so a platform ticket later we found ourselves in . . . the bar ! We thought it was worth waiting to see the magnificent Sir Archibald Sinclair locomotive who duly arrived about 10 mins later, and all 3 of us turned into complete anoraks, ooing an ahhing at her shiny engine! More titters as we spied a great advertising sign for Clatters - see photos! Us girlies even inspected the victorian plumbing in the gents loo as recommended by TB - and promptly wished we hadn't - mind you, quite luxurious compared to some of the loos we've all had to visit over many years of flying.

So after our detour we made the decision to head back as quickly as possible to the pub as it stopped serving food at 2.30 and closed at 3. Fish and chips all round which was excellent but they chucked us out promptly just after 3, so we sat outside on a bench overlooking the village cricket pitch, meeting some of the local dogs until finally heading homewards. No scores for the pub as we are unlikely to visit again due to early closing time, however, it's a lovely pub, recently restored, good food although the menu is a bit gastro -y for us walkers.
So, overall a really lovely walk - very pretty, beautiful houses, lakes, woods, fields, railway and views. And by the looks of things, quite a few blackberries and sloes in a few weeks. We'll be looking to do another one around here, but try to do it from the Gardeners Arms in Ardingly next time as it serves food all day.
Next week's walk tba but very probably the Old Mill at Dunnings, East Grinstead. Hope to see you all!
(Note from Picture Ed: blog would have been published much earlier this week, but I was very slow to upload pictures & video)